Briefly Living
by FlyingHampsterOfDoom
Summary: And then it was stolen from her, and Donna Noble wasn't at all surprised, because that was just how things were.


She hadn't understood the concept of death, not really, not until little Stephanie Autumn had fallen ill. She had begged her Granddad to take her to the hospital so she could visit her neighbor, and she had been terrified.

Stephanie Autumn had been hooked up to tubes- tubes to heal her, she was told, tubes to give her saline and blood and medicine that would kill her and make her better all in one. Tubes that stopped the nausea and tubes that looked like their only purpose was to look scary to a nine year old. It was these she would remember on Christmas morning that year, looking out her house to see the empty one next door, and wondering if Stephanie's parents had only been able to see the tubes when she'd died.

And so on Christmas day Donna realized that she'd lost her best friend.

Her first kiss had been sloppy and unexpected and simply unwanted. There she was, sitting next to the birthday girl Joanna Rickles, awkwardly fidgeting with her necklace and wondering why she was even there, she was supposed to be at home, grounded, and if her mom found out she'd snuck out again her life would get so much harder. And then there he was, sitting on the couch opposite her, with too much alcohol in him to talk straight- and suddenly he was on top of her, kissing her and trying to do so much more that at first she was stunned.

He showed up to school the next day with a black eye and a chipped tooth, and she showed up with another two weeks of grounding and a stolen first kiss.

On the first day of her first ever Temp job, she'd been commended for her quick abilities- her adaptation, her one-hundred-words-per-minute, her easy ability to smile at people like they mattered. She had been excited, filled with energy and happy that she had finally found something she was good at; a job that changed every few months, one she could never get bored with because it wasn't the same each time around. The simple unknown of what she'd be doing this same time next year filled her with an energy that kept her going each day.

But her mom had crashed into her life, and because she couldn't afford to move out just yet, there was no way to escape it. No way to not listen, and eventually, no way to not feel the same.

She was just a Temp from Chiswick, and she'd lost her self-respect.

And Lance had come and scooped it back up into her. She was suddenly important. Not to the whole world, she didn't want that (because to be important to that many people would be great and terrible and entirely too much), but she was important to someone. To him. And she felt special, to know that in all the world, she had been the one he got coffee for, and eventually the one she would beg to the alter.

Then, along came the spider, and down went Lance, and here she was, watching this man, the Doctor, bathe in water and sparks and soak up the shrieks of the spider who had taken her heart from her. She'd felt terrible, then. Even if that creature-woman had been planning on destroying everything, she was currently living through too much pain for Donna to feel alright.

To lose one child would be horrible, to lose multiple, unspecified amounts. She didn't think anyone deserved such a void in their life, to have a gap in their soul that was so large.

She imagined it would be like a whistle every time you did more than shuffle along. The sharp tang of air would not be a balm for something so great, merely a catalyst for untold songs of sorrow that would caress such a dark void.

So when the Doctor had asked her to come along, she'd refused, and only later would she realize that she had lost her second chance at life; because the first one had been stolen from her.

She loves this, is in love with it; with the way she's thrown around the control room and how her hair gets whipped around and gives her an excuse to niggle at the Doctor (anything to make him feel more her size, to remind them both he's not perfect). How the TARDIS whistles and hums through her as if they're both sharing a private joke, and she knows it annoys him that the two girls presently in his life are a tag-team now. Knows because she's overheard him complaining about it to the TARDIS; knows because she's felt the rooms reassemble themselves when he's being particularly testy about it and the ship's mad at him.

She's in love with racing for her life with him beside her, like they're equals and he doesn't think he needs to hold back to protect her or run forward to escape her- like he just wants to run with her because he likes the sport of it.

In love with his long rambles that she's actually (oh gods) starting to understand, and the way his voice warbles when he gets excited and cracks when he's surprised and feels like it's stronger than titanium and thicker than concrete when he's mad.

The way his coat swirls about his feet as he stands there, imposing and strict and nothing but solid for her to lean on when she's trying to feel imposing and strict and solid with him (because what good is a companion if she can't stand with him against the wrong things in the universe?). Or how it twists when he's jumping around the TARDIS madly and pushing buttons (or things that should be buttons but have been replaced with things that are definitely not buttons) and twisting knobs.

Or the way it fans out when he's running, like a great big beacon that's shouting at the universe, daring it to try and pin him down.

And she loves him for it, because he's the only one she knows who's shouting at all the worlds, the stars, the asteroids and comets and satellites and ships and telling them that he knows what it's done to him, and what he's done to it, but he's going to keep running and shouting and telling everything that he is simply too fast and too brilliant to fall.

She loves him for yelling all that, and that, just once, it was directed solely at her- asking her if she wanted to yell at everything too. If she wanted to be terrifying and beautiful and important- and at the time, it was just enough that someone had noticed her, and everything else seemed too overwhelming.

What she loves most is that she was the one who found him, in the end. It makes her feel like all the time she'd spent waiting, before he came along, was worth it; because it wouldn't have felt as special if he had both found her and chose her all in one.

And then it was stolen from her, and Donna Noble wasn't at all surprised, because that was just how things were.


End file.
